Week 5 – My Slip and the Lesson Learned

Throughout the previous weeks, I had managed to follow  and complete everything as required with absolutely no trouble whatsoever. Last week however, I slipped! I still completed all my reads and sits but when it came to the task on my Service card I struggled.

I must expand on that a little. When I wrote the task down, I really did not consider the amount of time it would actually take and the amount of time I was actually going to have available to me. Anyway, during the week I started to work on the task at hand and soon realised the magnitude of it, though I still thought that I would have enough time to get it completed over the weekend. Then, over the weekend I actually had to go out on both days in a work related capacity and for quite a few hours on both occasions. The upshot of all this was that I did not manage to get my task completed.

My reaction to this was not to reason that I had actually moved through the task significantly and was much further forward than I previously was, but to get down on myself and beat myself up which of course made me feel even worse. Now, this was my past behaviour. Previously, I have always done this when I have not managed to achieve something for whatever the reason.

This time though, I only had a small period of gloom. Then, I shook myself down, reasoned that actually I was a lot closer to the completed task than had I not been doing this process and that on occasion unforeseen stuff actually does crop up. I completed the task fully during the early part of the week and now I feel really good about it as it was a huge job now completed.

The lesson learned from this for me is that I should not beat myself up, particularly when it it not deserved. OK, fair enough if I had not tried, but I tried my best! Actually I should be (and am) proud of my achievements over recent weeks. Obviously, it’s a work still in progress but I am seeing noticeable positive changes in myself and for me to see that so soon is absolutely fantastic!